New York Rangers 2019 NHL Draft: Lottery Odds and Playoff Implications

Though the New York Rangers’ season has ended, there is still much for fans to pay attention to in the coming days and weeks. The 2019 Draft Lottery takes place in just a couple of days, and the playoffs will decide the fate of a few of the Rangers’ draft picks.

The 2019 Draft Lottery will take place Tuesday, April 9th, at 8pm ET.  The Rangers finished with the sixth-worst record in the NHL. As such, here are the odds for where they could end up picking in the 2019 NHL Entry Draft.

The Rangers have a 23.3% chance of winning a top-three lottery pick. Jack Hughes and Kaapo Kakko are the two-best players in the 2019 Draft by a mile, and so it’s worth noting that the Rangers have a combined 15.3% chance of landing the 1st or 2nd overall pick. At the same time, there is a 60.4% chance that they fall from 6th overall to a lower selection.

The playoffs also have major implications on the Rangers’ draft situation.

• The Rangers conditionally own Tampa Bay’s 2019 2nd-round pick from the Ryan McDonagh/J.T. Miller trade in 2018, which will be at 62nd overall. If Tampa Bay wins the Stanley Cup, then the pick will become their 2019 1st-round pick at 31st overall./

• The Rangers also own Dallas’ 2019 second-round pick at 47th overall. However, that pick will become a 1st-round pick should Dallas advance to the Western Conference Final and Mats Zuccarello plays in at least 50 percent of their games in the first two rounds. In that scenario, the pick would fall anywhere between 28th and 31st overall depending on how much further Dallas goes in the playoffs./

• The Rangers own the Winnipeg Jets’ 2019 first-round pick from the Kevin Hayes trade. The Jets finished 10th in the league, meaning that the Rangers tentatively own the 22nd-overall pick. However, that can easily change. That pick could move anywhere between 28th and 31st if Winnipeg advances to at least the Western Conference Final. Furthermore, the pick could drop if Winnipeg exits by the second round and any Wild Card teams make the Conference Finals, with the highest possible selection being 18th overall./

• Finally, as a condition in the Hayes trade, should the Winnipeg Jets win the Stanley Cup in 2019, the Rangers would acquire Winnipeg’s fourth-round pick in 2022./

Here is an overall summary of draft picks that the Rangers possess for the 2019 NHL Draft.